Elijah David

 About a month ago, Paper and Thorns  made its debut into the world. After some delays getting the Kindle edition up and running, I'm glad to say that this series is firmly established. Yes, you read right. Series . But more on that later. If you have missed my previous glimpses into Paper and Thorns , here's a little backstory. I have always loved the story of "Beauty and the Beast" (see also my recent post about the story over at SpeculativeFaith ). Back when Disney's live action remake of the animated film came out, my artist friend Mirriam sketched what she thought the Beast should  have looked like (I'll give you a hint: there were lots of horns and menace going on). The design sparked an idea and I started chipping away at the story of that Beast and what his happy ending might (or might not) look like. After a couple of false starts, Paper and Thorns  really took off. It's a short book (less than 100 pages), and that is purposeful. I tend to str...

Fairy Tale Central is doing some daily challenges on Instagram featuring OTPs (One True Pairings) as part of their celebration of all things fairy tale this month. For those of us who wind up doing these things in blog form, Arielle had kindly shared the full listing on her own blog here . Fairy Tale OTP Challenge: 1. The first fairy tale OTP you shipped      Probably Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin and Jasmine. These are the earliest fairy tales I can remember getting deeply involved in. 2. The cliché fairy tale OTP that everyone ships but you still love      I think I'll probably go with Snow and Charming from Once Upon a Time. Do I sometimes feel like they get too much of the spotlight in later seasons? Yes, but their relationship is wonderful in the first few seasons as we see them fight for each other. 3. Your favorite hate-to-love fairy tale OTP      I'm assuming this is an enemies to lovers trope rather than an ex...

Hello, again! I have been plugging away on some projects (and crocheting away, as I'm due to have a new baby nephew this summer!) -- one of which is to finish a round of edits on Paper and Thorns . I hope to have some exciting news on that front in the next month or two, but for now we'll have to be satisfied talking about other  fairy tales. Today I'm participating in Fairy Tale Central 's blog link-up. Fairy Tale Central is a website dedicated to fairy tales, including their origins, history, and retellings. Every month they feature a new tale, but in February they pull out all the stops and celebrate fairy tales of all kinds. FTC: What’s an obscure fairy tale you love? I always feel like "The Wild Swans" is a bit obscure since it's not one of the "big" tales that everyone knows thanks to Disney and the multitude of illustrated picture books that abound in the children's sections of bookstores. FTC: If you got to choose Disney’s nex...

I didn't get around to uploading more art last month, so here's the rest of the AprilFae pieces, along with some other projects I've had going in the last couple of weeks. The AprilFae pics got loaded all out of order, so I'm just going to tell you what the prompt was and what I was aiming for rather than which day it was for. This one was "faerie fruit" and I thought an acorn was the most faerie fruit. I did a little postcard with an acorn, a pebble, and a dandelion seed. This is a little trading card for "spellbound." I wanted to do something related to Sleeping Beauty, which led me to thorns, and somehow that led to a ring of thorns. This is another postcard, this time for "harebells" (which are the flowers). I couldn't quite get the idea of an actual hare and an actual bell out of my head, so we wound up with this strange little picture: These are two bookmarks, one for "goblin egg" and the...

Sleeping Beauty is one of those Disney films I love to come back to again and again. It has beautiful animation, humor, and some interesting magical characters. But over the years, I've come to think of it less as Aurora's story and more as the story of fairy politics. This belief was only reinforced by our weekend attempt to introduce Samwise to the movie (he was about as interested as he is in anything not Moana , which is to say very interested for about 5 minutes and then sporadically interested when he wasn't playing with toys). Exhibit A: Her (In)Active Role This is something a lot of people criticize about Sleeping Beauty : its protagonist . . . doesn't do much in the film. She sings, she wanders the woods while the "dears" prepare a birthday surprise, she meets a man, she submits to having her life turned upside down, and then she falls under the spell of the villain. She also has the fewest lines of dialogue of any Disney princess ever. She si...

My apologies for not getting a post up yesterday. It was a busier Monday than most, and with the holiday weekend I just didn't plan ahead as much as I needed to. On to this month's Top 10, inspired by our recent viewing (and rewatching) of Moana . Here, in no particular order, are my Top 10 Disney Animated Films (No Pixar because that's a whole 'nother list): Mulan This is here partly because it's my wife's favorite of the princess movies and partly because I just love it. The music is great, Pat Morita as the Emperor is brilliantly cast, and the strength of the central characters is phenomenal. (Here's hoping the live action adaptation doesn't ruin it.) Tangled One of the newest films on this list, Tangled is here for two reasons: "Mother Knows Best" and the beautiful way Rapunzel and Flynn's relationship goes from antagonistic to grudgingly cooperative to mutually respectful to sacrificial love. Also frying pans. (Okay, tha...

I recently read Naomi Novik's first standalone novel, Uprooted , after having a mild interest and receiving many recommendations from fellow bookworms. I really liked doing bulleted lists of likes and dislikes before, so we'll continue that trend today. Some minor and major spoiler follow, so if you prefer to avoid those, proceed with caution. But first, just look at this gorgeous cover! Appreciations: The MAGIC! This book's take on magic (that there are different "schools" of thought, some more academic, some more intuitive) and the main character's descriptions of her own spells blew me out of the water. It's wonderful and immersive and I hope Novik does more in this world in the future. The Polish fairy tale setting was a refreshing break from a generic fairy tale setting that's either England or France. It was just familiar enough to not be disengaging and just new enough to keep me in wonder throughout. The resolution of the conflict ...

I recently tracked down a copy of the original Beauty and the Beast  by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. Previously, I'd only read Beaumont's abridged adaptation of this story, as it's much shorter and easier to anthologize. Since this was my first time encountering the original of my favorite fairy tale, I thought I'd talk about what this version has that I've not seen in other adaptations. Brothers: Beauty has brothers as well as sisters, and true to fairy tale form, her brothers are kind and understanding people while her sisters (in contrast to Beauty) are vain and materialistic. I had seen or read adaptations that included the sisters before (Robin McKinley's Beauty , the French film  La Belle et la Bete ) but I hadn't seen brothers before, and their presence reminded me of the relationship between the heroine and her brothers in "The Wild Swans" (or "The Seven Ravens" or "The Six Swans"). I wish more retellings...

It's Memorial Day, so everyone is gearing up for summer. And that means summer reading lists. I didn't really do summer reading lists when I was in school, not do I have a good gauge of what a friend called "summer books" (i.e. books that have a summery tone or setting). To be honest, I was constantly reading whatever I could get my hands on no matter the season. (And when I tried to think of "summer" books, I found I tended to place books in either autumn or fall categories if I could categorize them at all; not surprising, since I am an autumnal soul.) So instead of sharing a suggested reading list for this summer, I thought I'd share what's on my own list for this summer. * means it's a reread. # means I'm already reading it. @ means it's an audio book. Innocents Aboard by Gene Wolfe * # Uprooted by Naomi Novik # The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich # Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams * # To Green Angel To...

I actually have snippets from two projects this time. First, a couple from Albion Apparent . “I wouldn’t expect an answer right away,” said Bill. I turned to see him standing at the door where he’d left me. “He tends to let us learn patience along with prayer.” Bill stepped forward into the wan light, his pulled-down hat making the covered eye seem like a deep pit. “I don’t think there’s much time for patience,” I said. “Most people don’t.” He stopped at the end of the pew where I was sitting. “It doesn’t change His timing.” *** “Who are you talking to, young Merlin?” “Nobody.” “I’ve heard that’s one of the signs of insanity,” said Robin. “Then again, it’s not nearly as fun as hallucinations, so I think it shouldn’t even count.” *** I clenched my fist, then relaxed it. I hadn’t realized mortals could read my emotions so easily. “You know I’m a Valkyrie,” I said, “and what that means.” He nodded. “Except I’m not anymore, not really.” I broke eye conta...

Beauty and the Beast I'm a sucker for true love conquers all and the transforming power of love. The Disney version of the tale was one of my favorites as a child and I've only grown to love this story's heart even more since then. Till We Have Faces , Lewis' retelling of "Cupid and Psyche" (itself an earlier form of "Beauty and the Beast"), is one of my favorite books of all time. I can't get enough of seeing people learn to love others more than themselves, especially when the other person is unlovable. That's Christ-like love, and it's powerful. The Six Swans/Seven Ravens I first encountered this story in an old VHS of fairy tale retellings (it also had a Robin Hood retelling and others I've forgotten). I remember the love of the heroine for her brothers and her perseverance in fulfilling the prescriptions for breaking the curse drawing me into the story like few I'd heard before. I certainly couldn't have kept...